avenge

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

transitive v. To inflict a punishment or penalty in return for; revenge: avenge a murder.

transitive v. To take vengeance on behalf of: avenged their wronged parents.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

n. A vengeance; a revenge.

v. To take vengeance (for); to exact satisfaction for by punishing the injuring party; to vindicate by inflicting pain or evil on a wrongdoer.

v. To treat revengefully; to wreak vengeance on.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

n. Vengeance; revenge.

intransitive v. To take vengeance.

transitive v. To take vengeance for; to exact satisfaction for by punishing the injuring party; to vindicate by inflicting pain or evil on a wrongdoer.

transitive v. To treat revengefully; to wreak vengeance on.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

To vindicate by inflicting pain or evil on the wrong-doer; execute justice or vengeance on behalf of: with a person as object.

To take satisfaction for, by pain or punishment inflicted on the injuring party; deal punishment on account of: with a thing as object.

To take revenge on; treat or deal with revengefully.

Synonyms Avenge, Revenge. Until lately these words were used with little or no difference of meaning (see quotations under each). Avenge is now restricted to the taking of just punishment or the vindication of justice, and revenge to the infliction of pain or evil to gratify resentful feelings, or the desire of retaliation for some real or fancied wrong. Poetic use sometimes returns to the earlier freedom in the meaning of avenge. see revenge, n.

To execute vengeance; inflict retaliatory pain or injury on a wrong-doer.

Etymologies

Middle English avengen, from Old French avengier : a-, to (from Latin ad-; see ad-) + vengier, to vindicate (from Latin vindicāre, to claim; see vindicate).

(American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

From Old French avengier, from a- ("upon") + vengier, from Latin vindicare. (Wiktionary)

Examples

The Lord uses words without anxiety as to the misuse of them by such as do not search after his will in them; and the word avenge may be simply retained from the parable without its special meaning therein; yet it suggests a remark or two.

LUI: You know, Chris, the statement you were bringing up in your report, the official using the word "avenge" -- we don't commonly see that in a statement coming from a government agency or from an official.

Public anger is simmering over the air incursions and an dramatic escalation of CIA drone strikes against militants in Pakistan's tribal areas, and a Taliban spokesman vowed that it would "avenge" those attacks with more strikes on "foreign forces" in Pakistan, Reuters reported.

` ` It's the first time out this year, trying to kind of avenge a loss at the Fiesta Bowl last year, so there was a lot of preparation put in to come out and play well, '' said Bradford, referring to a 48-28 loss to West Virginia this January.

But after he divulges that his father basically killed himself over cooking, and Clay says that he's here to kind of avenge that death, I decide the producers would never show that clip to the viewers and then make him pack his knives.